Kimmel weighs renovations

Just months after paying off construction bills dating from its opening seven years ago, the Kimmel Center is undertaking its next act: renovations.

The ambitious project - well into the planning phase but with parameters and price tag still unknown - comes in two major chunks.

One will be the creation of a master plan to increase use of the public spaces, not just around performance times but at other times - on many days, the Kimmel is sparsely populated.

The other will seek to redress the widely criticized acoustic of Verizon Hall, the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, whose creation was the impetus for building the $275 million arts complex, which opened in December 2001.

The scope of the project is still fuzzy, though Kimmel leaders are taking this moment in time to think big.

"It's a clean slate and everything's up for grabs," said Kimmel facilities vice president George Shaeffer.

Kimmel CEO Anne Ewers said the master plan was nothing less than a rethinking of all the Kimmel's spaces except Verizon Hall and the Perelman Theater. Ideas generated by PennPraxis at a public exercise in April, as well as input gathered from the public in focus groups, will be considered in generating the plan.

The contract for the plan has been awarded to KieranTimberlake Associates, a Philadelphia firm with a national portfolio. "They are going to basically determine what kind of alterations are appropriate for the space, based on our mission," said Ewers, who expects this first phase of the planning to be complete in March or April.

KieranTimberlake was chosen from among seven firms that had been asked to submit proposals, Ewer said.

Authors of the acoustical work have not yet been chosen; three firms have been asked to submit proposals.

"We wanted somebody to offer comments and suggestions on what they think are the deficiencies and how they would remedy the deficiencies, as well as commenting on what Artec found," said Shaeffer.

Actually, the report will be a third opinion. In 2004 Artec Consultants, Verizon's original acoustician, issued a study stating that budget cuts during construction forced concessions that adversely affected the hall's sound. Verizon suffers from a "low level of reverberance" and a "relatively low level of impact of the orchestral sound," the firm said.

Last year another leading acoustician, R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, was engaged by the Kimmel Center for a second opinion.

"It needs help," Kirkegaard said. "The building, the orchestra, the city, the donors, the future generations of listeners all deserve something better than what's there in acoustic terms. There's a weakness that should not be the case for a major orchestra in an important hall."

Artec has expressed a desire to continue its work on Verizon but was not among the three firms invited to submit proposals. Ewers declined to name them.

When politicians and civic leaders were stumping for the new arts center, they asked the public and donors to imagine a new public square for the city - a busy, 18-hour-a-day meeting place where anyone could show up at any time and hear a performance or lecture, see a movie, or idle in the plaza over coffee.

But partly through design and partly in the way the space is managed, the Kimmel has sent a clear message not to loiter in its vast lobby or other interior spaces, and the public has been obedient.

"The outside, now seen as foreboding, dull and confusing, should broadcast a sense of excitement and activity onto the street," concluded the PennPraxis proposals unveiled in April.

Shaeffer said that KieranTimberlake stood out by making one comment in its proposal.

"They said something like 'form follows function - you need to decide what you want to be and design the space once you've decided what you want to be.' They strongly suggested that we examine the space and how we want to improve it and for what purpose, and then decide how to make it look different."

Earlier ideas for enlivening the Kimmel were suggested by the Center City District and architecture firm MGA Partners. They proposed moving the ticket window outside and installing a video-projection screen that would show images from performances.

Many of the suggestions - in the way they sought to transmit to the outside world the activities of the building within - echo Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates' earlier unbuilt scheme for the Kimmel's predecessor project for the site, the Philadelphia Orchestra concert hall.

PennPraxis' ideas ranged, on the obvious end of the scale, from simply opening up more points of entry from the street and adding a ground-floor cafe to more idealistic schemes, among them adding rock-climbing to the side of Verizon Hall and installing a glass floor atop the Perelman from which water would flow down the sides of the hall's exterior.

"If you counted up their ideas, they threw 35 different ideas on the table, some of which are easy, some difficult, some far-fetched, some practical," said Shaeffer. "I think we need to examine all of them."

Whatever KieranTimberlake's conclusions, they will likely consider relocation of the gift shop, restaurant, cafe and ticketing booth.

Also on the table, Ewers said, is a rethinking of the mezzanine level - the floor just below ground level that contains restrooms, coat checks and the Innovation Studio.

"The mezzanine level is being rethought. It has some really interesting potential," she said.

Ewers has not ducked criticism of the center. But when she took over as the Kimmel's new leader in 2007, she took up an existing effort as her first priority: paying off $30 million in debt from the construction phase and boosting endowment.

In April, a group of local foundations and other donors bailed out the center with almost $74 million.

But how can the Kimmel hope to pay for this new round of construction - especially in gloomy economic times?

The center is simultaneously commissioning a fund-raising study that would gauge the potential of a comprehensive campaign encompassing capital costs, endowment and annual giving.

"You have to see what on the one hand are the things the master plan identifies and the dollar figure, and on the other hand, what is the potential?" Ewers said.

No actual construction is likely to begin before summer, she said.